


A Non-Exhaustive List of Things that Could Kill Sonny Carisi

by beelivia



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hospitals, M/M, Smoking, Suicide mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-04 02:20:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15831756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beelivia/pseuds/beelivia
Summary: A short series of anecdotal vignettes from Rafael's point of view about his boyfriend, Sonny.





	1. His Need to be a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this came into my brain, merry Christmas

Everyone who knows Sonny knows that he’s protective. It’s no secret, what with the way he’s the first to volunteer for dangerous calls, jump in front of victims, shield people from the horrors of the job. He walks closer to the street on the sidewalk and sleeps on the side of the bed closer to the door. Every morning he walks Rafael to work and every night walks him home (although that’s more because he’s a sap than because of the perpetual threats to Rafael’s life). He needs to protect people, mostly because no one ever protected him from the words and fists hurled at him from the time he was old enough to attend Staten Island public school. 

He needs to be the hero, always has. Rafael thinks he would have learned when Sergeant Dodds’ hero complex got him shot in the stomach, later killing him in a sterile hospital room. That had crushed Sonny for days into bed confinement while the grief ripped through him like a tidal wave. Or maybe that just made it worse; no one had a bad word to say about him once he died, and Sonny seems more worn down with every passing day. It gets harder to drag him out of bed.

Funnily enough, Sonny had been up at the crack of dawn this morning. He was almost lively, waking Rafael up with a kiss and a cup of coffee just the way he likes it. He was clumsy getting dressed with the same sloppy knot on his tie before coming to the edge of the bed to have it fixed. Once he started wearing “big boy ties” instead of clip-ons, he’s gotten better, but it’s still more messy than it is proper. Just like the man himself, the ties are a beautiful disaster.

The day was primed to be a good one, even tame at work, until Liv had called to ask him to come pick Sonny up from the precinct. Unusual enough on its own, the quiver of her tone added to the panic of such a request and had him rushing out of work and to SVU. He had too many ideas what could be wrong. Injuries? No, he wasn’t at the hospital. Another death? No, someone would’ve called him. A bad case? No, Sonny wouldn’t be that shaken up. It’s the fear of the unexpected that makes Rafael’s heart pound in his chest as an unsteady drum until he finally makes it all the way to the bullpen.

He was directed to the break room, and he can’t forget the look in Sonny’s eyes. Hollow. Dead. Traumatized. Blood speckled like dulled rubies in his hairline and the collar of his shirt, still fresh enough to reflect the barest amount of fluorescent lights bouncing off ugly green walls. He jumps when Rafael says his name. Tears begun to pool in his eyes while he stuttered out the way he stared death in the eyes and said his final prayers in a half-finished house while the victim screamed behind him.

In the back of his mind, Rafael always knows Sonny might not come home one day, but that incident was the first time it became real.


	2. Forgetting to Wear a Coat

In his haste to care for everyone else, Sonny often neglects his own wants and needs without a second thought. Rollins forgetting her coat on a frigid day in mid-November wasn’t Sonny’s fault, nor was it his responsibility to wrap his sensible jacket around her narrow shoulders with a dimpled smile. He’ll be fine, he had said, to her and to Rafael. After all, he’s bigger and taller and has a shorter trek home in the flurried snowfall. With only a thin suit and a ratty scarf gifted to him by his mother several years ago, he braved the weather for an accumulated four hours that day. And he seemed fine for a couple days, if a little chillier in the bed at night.

By the time he spoke up about the effects, everyone knew. He was always too warm but shivered in the slightest draft. Pink flushed cheeks spread to the tip of his runny nose and accompanied a hacking cough that sounded like a handful of dirty gravel rattling in his chest. Still, he insisted he was fine and chugged slightly too much cough syrup before collapsing into a heavy sleep, laid thicker over him than he’d had in a while.

Rafael was almost glad to see him rest until Sonny didn’t wake up the next morning. Shuddering breath still crept from his mouth, and there was a pulse to be felt against his neck, but he was dead to the world and burning with a high enough fever to make Rafael worried. He himself doesn’t get sick often, so he hadn’t known what to do other than place a wet rag on Sonny’s forehead and call the both of them out for the day. Soon enough, he figured that things would go back to normal.

At around two in the afternoon, Sonny worked himself into a coughing fit so severe his complexion started towards a pallid blue. 

After that was a mess of Urgent Care and the hospital and holding Sonny’s clammy hand while Rafael listened to clinical descriptions of the fluid building up in his boyfriend’s lungs. IVs of combatants and fluids and sugars drained into Sonny’s pale forearm with a purple bruise blooming around the needle. He’s always bruised like a peach, especially when stuck at the doctor’s office with vaccines and blood draws. This was different though, because Sonny wasn’t alert enough to joke about it behind his plastic oxygen mask.

For a while, it was touch and go. Several days of fear and praying with Sonny’s rotating cast of family members and briefing Liv when the opportunity presented itself. Of all the things he goes through on a daily basis, it hurt to imagine that the thing to take him down would be his need to protect his coworkers.

Luckily, things got better and he soon came home with a noticeable exhaustion in his muscles but a twitching grin waiting to burst free. A couple more weeks passed, and then he was back at work with his usual enthusiasm. None of that mattered as much as the fact that Rafael gained a painful awareness of how fragile Sonny really is.


	3. The Worst Habit He Ever Picked Up

While Rafael admits there are worse ways for Sonny to cope with the stress, like drinking or mindless sex, he hates this. And it’s almost insulting that he thinks he can hide it from him, because when Sonny “goes for a walk”, he comes home reeking of the grungy smoke clinging to the fabric of his suit. The pack keeps a crisp outline in the pocket, one which then disappears not long after Sonny deposits his keys and wallet in their nightstand.

Once, he had tried to convince Sonny to stop. He wouldn’t kiss him if he could taste the nicotine on his breath from across the room. He threw away every pack he found, no matter how empty or full. He stole lighters from coats and drawers. In the end, it only made them argue. Sonny says things he doesn’t mean when he’s angry, worse when it’s compounded by the burning withdrawal in his blood. After the last big fight that almost tore them apart, they fell silent. Sonny only smoked when he was hours from seeing Rafael, and Rafael pretended not to know.

The hiding got lazy though, and now Sonny came home with a nearly empty pack in hand, brand-new cellophane still clinging to the package. He smelled so strongly that Rafael wrinkled his nose, and his hands shook slightly. His eyes may have been the most painful, though; they were empty, and angry, and worst of all, exhausted. 

Rafael said his name only once, rather quietly, and Sonny responded by walking straight to the trash can and discarding his vice. Soon, more would appear, Rafael thought. He wishes he knew what set Sonny off, but he doesn’t and never will. No one on the squad had any insight to offer when he tentatively asked if something had happened.

After a long shower and fresh clothes, the cigarette smoke still clung to his skin, but Rafael didn’t say anything when Sonny crawled onto the couch with him and rested his head on Rafael’s shoulder. He needed to be comforted before he killed himself with tarred lungs, and Rafael couldn’t bring himself to deny him.


	4. Walking Home After 2AM

Late night shifts always leave Sonny too tired to really think things through, especially when he’s left walking out of the precinct in the middle of the night after working for several hours on a difficult case before Liv finally sent him home to get proper rest. Rafael had intended to wait up for him, but drifted off around midnight. His own demanding job has never left much energy by the time he can get home, which has always made keeping their relationship together somewhat of a hardship. A worthwhile one, but a hardship nonetheless.

The point is that Rafael was asleep and didn’t answer the desperate phone call that had his phone almost buzzing off the table where he left it before crashing. He should’ve stayed up, should’ve waited for Sonny to get home, should’ve answered his cell phone. Lately, he’s thought a lot about the things he should’ve done. It’s too late now, but Rafael didn’t know that when he jerked awake at the sound of the front door slamming against the wall.

Sonny looked a mess. His hair falling from the gelled style, his clothes torn, scratches marring his face. Something happened. Rafael woke up quickly, on his feet in an instant to check if Sonny was okay. All of his questions and concerns fell on deaf ears however, as ruined clothes pooled on the ground and Sonny’s pockets turned out crumpled receipts and loose change, but nothing else.

He didn’t tell Rafael what happened, but the pieces started to finally come together. A mugging. Rough, if Sonny’s scrapes were anything to go by. It was more than that, though. It was a defeat. Wounded pride cut deeper than the gash on Sonny’s hip from what Rafael thought might be a box-cutter but couldn’t get a straight answer about. Attacked like a defenseless civilian, robbed of his wallet and gun, stranded bloody on the streets until he could drag himself home on wobbly legs.

Looking back, that night was the turning point. Both of them knew it, deep down, but neither could admit it yet.


	5. Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> >:)

Rafael remembers that it had been uncharacteristically sunny outside for mid-October, and he thought about Sonny’s love for warm weather as he shed his coat. Light filtered into his office through cracked blinds and for once, he didn’t mind it because it had felt like a good day. Both he and Sonny would be off work at a reasonable hour, so they were going to have dinner together, cuddle with glasses of wine, perhaps even fool around for the first time in what felt like forever.

Those thoughts and plans kept Rafael smiling for most of the day.

At three in the afternoon, Sonny texted that he wouldn’t be able to make it home, that he was working late and it was important. He followed it with a heart emoji and an uncapitalized ‘i love you’ written like a Hail Mary. Sonny said and did things like that as merely a nature of being, so Rafael simply asked how long and did not receive an answer. Finally, he primly informed Sonny he’d be working late at the office and not to wait up should he manage to get home first. It was petty, but it made Rafael feel less hurt for the next few hours.

At one in the morning, he realized he still hadn’t heard from Sonny despite being so late at work, and messaged Liv asking how the case was going, if Sonny could come home soon. She called him. Told him that she didn’t know what he was talking about because Sonny went home early, actually, at around four.

Rafael knew something was wrong, in that moment. He sensed it the way dogs sense earthquakes and the squad sensed lies. His heart pounded in his chest in a poor parody of club music while the Uber he ordered sped him to their little home wrapped up in a towering apartment. While he wanted to believe Sonny had gone home, exhausted, and forgotten to say something about it, he was too aware how stupid the idea was.

When he walked into their apartment, there was no note. No scribbled final thoughts. No apologies or explanations. No last will. Just an unquestionable air of something being very wrong. 

Sonny’s shoes were neatly left at the door and his coat on the hook. His gun, badge, wallet, keys and phone were laid out in a pristine line on the counter like an exhibit in a museum. All of the doors were open except for the bathroom, which was shut and had water that didn’t look quite right pooling where tile met carpet. Against his better judgement, Rafael crept towards the ominous door as alarm bells hit a crescendo in his ears.

He pushes open the door.

And screams.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is @honeycarisi
> 
> leave kudos/comments, they're what keep me updating


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